April 28, 2012

"You know and people will have drinks before, wine after, then three courses, then they want coffee and someone is going to ask for a fucking French press and all the rest of this crap. To me my idea of what’s good is to drive here and go to Waffle House, get a couple of eggs and waffle. When I see the first Waffle House, I know I’m in the South. That’s good."

36 comments:

Yes! I love Waffle House. Good food, quick. I like going late or other off hours and sit at the counter or a booth close to the cooks. Watching them and talking to them while they cook can be quite entertaining. Plus, the way the kitchen area is laid out and the cooking processes are a science. Good coffee, too.

Born and raised in the South, but having also traveled to 46 of the 50 states and to Europe, Korea, Japan, and the Phillipines, I can say sitting the Waffle House at about midnight is one of the greatest pleasures in the world. I can also say that once, while having a multi-course fancy dinner with some French military counterparts in NATO, all I could do was think of a McDonald's cheeseburger. Simple pleasures are the best.

Fortunately he wasn't with my wife and me on our wedding night. We went to Chanterelle and got seated at 7:30 and didn't get out till quarter past 2:00. It was amazing. We were semi-regulars, and to say they pulled out all the stops is quite an understatement. They were bringing us stuff that hadn't been officially on the menu in years.

It's also fortunate he wasn't with my wife and me on our wedding night because he's a lefty douche.

You need the right company to enjoy a 3-hour dinner. With the wrong people, that's torture. (BTDT with my ex-mother-in-law,who lived to find - and complain about - the flaws in every situation.)

Still have never been to a Waffle House, in spite of living within easy driving distance to at least 2, over the past 16 or so years. I know my husband has fond memories of them from when he lived in Florida. OTOH, my kids and I really love going to In-N-Out before piano lessons. It's a high point of the week.

You can have sublime experiences in pretty much any surroundings, if you're open to the idea.

Don't like Waffle House, don't like it at all, but it was my young relatives' favorite place to go after movies so I endured. Now IHOP is our after movie eatery where they ask me what dressing I want on my Caesar Salad. The waitress felt so bad about my bare looking salad she offered to take it back and add tomatoes and cucumbers and carrots.

Thanks for posting that. I love Gaiman, but somehow never track his blog closely.

Sitting here watching the Dove Awards for Christian Music and I must say, the badinage between the hosts is far superior to anything I've seen on the Oscars in years.

Me, I like to cook at home (which is overwhelmingly the norm here, day after day after day: Every Day), with also the leavening of both Waffle Houses and upscale restaurants thrown in there, life-living speaking.

Waffle House is an Atlanta chain that builds and owns its own restaurants. They are well run.

A quick platter of anything with hash browns scattered with onions and a of coffee is part of travel in the south.

The restaurants are designed to look like warm and cozy kitchens seen from the outside. In addition to fresh food they are selling the feelings from childhood of being served by a loving mother in the kitchen. That is a big attraction to the many rootless or temporarily homeless grown ups.

Allie... Good morning to you. The family part at Waffle House is an informal friendliness like being in a Dickens novel with country cousins. It is the opposite experience from dining at a proud French Restaurant. And when traveling it is also open on Christmas Day...like a family should be that takes you in when all else is closed.

Not a King fan, but I think more of him now. Agree totally. I have a number of foodie friends who could spend all night around the table. Often as not, by the time the check comes, I'm hungry again and want to get a pizza.

Last Thanksgiving, after a ten hour drive to my parents--my father was in a nursing home dying and my mother was going to bed--my wife and I had an intimate Thanksgiving dinner at the Waffle House next to our motel.

Allie, it's true that one of the lesser items on the Waffle House menu is the waffles. Go figure.

Quite a few Parris Island drill instructors come into the waffle house. They are steak for breakfast guys. Also, eggs, sausage, bacon, etc. They are pretty hungry after the training pod has graduated.

Parris Island has a graduation almost every Friday. The parents come and bring the siblings of the recruits. Once graduation is over, they often go out for a meal in town and every Friday and some Saturdays there are recruit graduates and their families in the Waffle House. The grads are in uniform and look fabulous. The siblings can't take their eyes off of them, they are so amazingly transformed.

Roger, one of my most memorable Thanksgiving Dinners was at the Eat-N-Park Big Boy in Gibsonia, Pa. just after my wife's mother had died at the nursing home there. Just me and my wife. A lot of talking and giving thanks got done.